Capturing and grouping SDR frames containing sections of HDR from a video feed to artificially expand the dynamic range of SDR screens

Capturing and grouping SDR frames containing sections of HDR from a video feed to artificially expand the dynamic range of SDR screens

Schreuder, Rinke (TU Delft Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science; TU Delft Software Technology)

Wiersma, R.T. (mentor)
Eisemann, E. (graduation committee)
Zarras, A. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Computer Science and Engineering

CSE3000 Research Project

2021-07-01

In this paper, a method is proposed to artificially expand the dynamic range of screens with a limited dynamic range. This research is linked to a new film-making technology where, instead of using a green screen, the background of a scene is displayed on a screen in real time using a computer generated background. This provides real time lighting in the studio; however, due to the limited dynamic range of the screen, it can not fully replicate the brightness of light sources. Overcoming this problem involves capturing and synchronize frames that each display a small section of the wider dynamic range, defined as illumination maps. The method uses a pipeline in which the illumination maps are displayed on a monitor in a grouped order, which are then captured with a camera. The recording is processed by labeling the frames and selecting key frames. The key frames are then additively combined with compatible illumination maps, which result in a video of the full dynamic range.
A program was developed as a proof of concept, providing expected results. For various recording inputs, It was also found that the implemented program discarded a lot of the frames of the recordings. A variation of the proposed method also yielded a slight speed-up, for practically the same results.
The proposed method provides a good starting point tackling the problem of artificially extending the dynamic range. The program used is a step in the right direction, but has flaws that limit its usefulness.

HDR reconstruction
Capturing frames
SDR screen

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:622af2a4-ac8c-48bf-b481-34a0866a733a

Student theses

bachelor thesis

© 2021 Rinke Schreuder